France to Spain to Portugal by Eurail: 24-29 April 2024
Marseille: Less than two hours between trains to dump our bags, negotiate the Metro and wander the Old Port towards Fort Saint-Jean, the small and very moving Mémorial des Déportations de la Ville de Marseille, and the large and very monumental Cathedrale La Major. Returning to Gare Saint-Charles to grab a take-way lunch we found our “Intercities” train to Perpignan (the critical connection to the Spanish bargain-rate high-speed train from Perpignan to Barcelona) was “Annulé“. A student from Bordeaux, also glumly considering the "Départs" screens, was similarly cancelled. He guided us to the correct (of three possible) SNCF offices and ensured we were allocated to the queue of the disappointed from the Train Annulé. We lost our bargain international fare to Barcelona because French and Spanish Railways are no longer on speaking terms but were allocated to the next Perpignan train with the last possible connection to Barcelona. Just the seat reservations on this French connection into Spain cost more than the original Spanish fares…. Further punishment was “dining” for 2 hours at something called “Carl’s Jr”, as any semblance of a civilised lunch buffet seems to have been privatised out of Marseille Saint-Charles….
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Following two days in spectacularly Gaudi Barcelona, our booked train to Madrid failed to exist on the Eurail app (because “everything Eurail” is now online, including allegedly available trains in this age of semi-privatisation). The app does generally show allowable connections on the pass , and even a lovely map and stats of train travel kilometres and hours and low-carbon impact when your holiday is done. But it refused to divulge our pre-booked train.
It did, however, lurk in RENFE online timetables and seemed to exist on station indicators when we wandered into the gaping factory maw of Barcelona-Sants… early, just in case, with an unexpected time-filler provided in the form of airport-style security queues. It was then a zippy 300kph to Madrid in the booked-out Friday night train-of-many-students heading home for the weekend.
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Madrid: Wandering the Plaza Mayor following Sunday Mass at Cathedral de Nuestra Senora de la Alumeda (escaping from the drizzle) became increasingly episodic between rainstorm ambushes leading to sodden shoes and strides, but lovely atmospheric photos. Sheltering for lunch was in a narrow hallway seafood-roll and cerveza bar with brilliant fried capsicum rolls… The Afternoon Scattering-of-Crowds-in-Sudden-Showers from the impressive Art Nouveau architecture in – appropriately - Gran Via, found us sheltering in a fuggy and bizarrely disorganised Starbucks where no order survived the “systems” unscathed. Complete strangers become sudden best friends as plastic containers of vaguely recognised concoctions were exchanged, so at least the scrawled names were correct. We were quizzed by elderly table companions from Durham and Cumbria about Australian weather and all of our ”deadly wildlife”. (If you’ve read Chapter 1 of Bill Bryson’s “Down Under”, the script will be familiar…). They were particularly keen to know about Melbourne weather: we explained the concept of "Four Seasons in One Day". They departed, unconvinced, into the cold drizzle. The other (until now, silent) table companions introduced themselves, from Brisbane, laughing, and agreeing with our dodgy reviews.
The rest of the afternoon was spent escaping the persistent rain at the Museo Reina Sofia (just next door to our “hostal”) and in the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum (just up the road a bit, across from the perpetually packed Prado). My revisit to Picasso’s “Geurnica” at the Reina Sofia was no longer in the dark and subdued and respectful space I remember from 1982 (when it had recently been returned to Spain following the end of the Franco dictatorship), but brightly lit so that the torn newspaper and hurried strokes within the artwork add to the sense of chaos and protest and outrage. It is hung within galleries of Civil War magazines, posters propaganda and black and white films of the era, adjacent to (and allowing recovery from) galleries of Salvador Dali and Surrealism. The whole collection is immersive and suitably confronting.
For some reason the Thyssen-Bornemisza galleries are arranged for viewing in reverse-chronological order from Modernism to Medieval religious art… all very odd (especially when trying to make sense of it all for my stioc travelling companion's first visit), however the place is bright, uncrowded and relaxed, enabling time to really appreciate works of many artists who were merely blurred props or passing scenery to the guided, marauding route-march through the Vatical Museum. It was also great to see the Sir R’s genuine excitement at first sight of a Rembrandt or a Rubens or a Renoir or a Cezanne and a Van Gogh (in the landscape colours of Arles and the south of France glimpsed from the train to Marseilles a few days earlier). I preferred the “delights” of George Grosz… after recent reading and viewing of “Babylon Berlin”.
The day ended suitably, battling through (largely middle-aged) protestors determined to stop the resignation of the Spanish PM as he took time-out to recover from the continuing online attacks and legal onslaught on his family by right-wing politicians and their lackeys. (This is, after all, the country where the Right of politics includes factions aligned with the power structures of the Franco dictatorship years, still yearning for the past…).
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Madrid to Lisbon on Europe’s least prestigious international train(s):
Madrid-Puerta De Atocha: No longer travelling “high speed”, we were snootily directed to the suburban end of the grand and confusing Atocha station(s). Originally designed to copy St Pancras, the vast steel and glass roofed area is now an impressive indoor garden with memorials to those killed by terrorist train bombings during the morning peak, just prior to the 2004 elections. The modern functioning station of high-speed standard gauge and “suburban" broad gauge trains is more like London Euston or an underground version of Sydney Central or a cluttered 1980’s airport terminal overstuffed with commuters avoiding renovation works.
There’s no security check here in the broad gauge station as we’re on a 6 hour journey to the south western border town of Badajoz on an ageing Talgo diesel train, bumping over indifferent track around the picturesquely undulating landscape until earthworks and recently laid track for a new high speed line are reached in the last hour of the journey.
Beyond the unlovely apartments and industrial suburban sprawl of Madrid, including a large and scrappy Westfield, the scenery is pleasant enough, looking west towards distant, increasingly snow-clad mountains of the Parque de la Sierra Gredos, beyond olive plantations and distant forests and grassy fields with swathes of Spring yellow and purple flowers (the latter looking suspiciously like Patterson’s Curse). At Oropesa de Toledo a massive 13thCentury castle is passed. It’s now a two-star hotel in Booking.com after housing royal families for centuries. A massive Roman aqueduct dwarfs the arriving train into Merida where, after some shunting and transferring of passengers towards Seville, and Cordoba, the train reverses towards the Portuguese border, wandering into the fresh concrete glare of Badajoz station.
French and Spanish railways didn’t much talk to each other in Marseille; Madrid and Lisbon are the only EU capitals connected by rail who can no longer agree to run any direct passenger train between them at all. Two or three train changes are now required to make the journey (unlike my previous travel into Lisbon 1982 when a grand Portuguese sleeping car’s attendant would greet you with freshly made linen on a generous bunk kitted out with monogrammed blankets and a small bottle of welcoming port with glasses, easing you to sleep before a gentle wake-up upon arrival into Santa Apolonia terminal).
At Badajoz there is no connecting train in sight or on a platform indicator until a curt announcement directs a small clump of passengers down a subway to the rear of the station buildings and the “International Train”.
It is a single burbling railcar. It dates from the 1950’s having been “made over” more times than Joan Rivers’ face to appear modern-ish. Lurking in the small stub platform, from the front its face is a bulbous green plastic mould with a narrow roof vent frowning its welcome above a broad windscreen and black-painted mouth. It threatens to stop at every station to Abrantes, then skip a few stops to arrive at the unprepossessing junction of Encontramento in about three hours. From that point, a similar experience is promised on a tired electric “Regional” commuter train for another couple of hours into Lisboa-Sta Apolonia.
Passengers fill about a third of the "International" diesel; baggage fills another third of the seats as no racks are provided. There is air-conditioning and a curt grey-suited conductor. The toilet works.
And it is just the best, leisurely and gently scenic travel experience: reliving those days of country branch lines with station-yard silos in farming landscapes stretched between dirt roads and distant towns; where the arrival of the train is still a bit of an event. Small two-storeyed, white-painted stations are individually tiled to about shoulder level at the arched doorways. Floor tiles spell the name of the station on the platform. The purple-green fields roll towards low hills and mountains in the distance.
Faded white, red-tiled farm houses with concrete walled yards and gravel drives perch on those hilltops not occupied by religious buildings and spires. They are surrounded by neat parallel lines of cultivations and orchards in yellow soil with occasional abandoned outbuildings. Larger stations feature blue-tiled wall illustrations of local landscapes and history surrounded by curved, ornate, yellow-painted tile frames below green door gables. At Abrantes, the large town is clustered around the upper reaches of the Tagus River which the railway follows along the extended valley and estuary to Lisbon, after passing the local castle.
At 4.30, a yellow-upgraded-plastic-faced and hugely graffitied Regional electric train rolls in to take us through Oriente station (a new, modern, steel-gothic main-station palace for trains in Lisbon) then to the former main station terminal at Santa Apolonia.
Lisbon: By sunset we have joined the strolling crowds looking across the vast orange-tinged Tagus River, grey-clouded red sky and maroon suspension bridge, with Portugal's version of Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer statue staring across to the old city hills from high above the water at Almada… listening to fine buskers, crowd laughter and singing and anticipating a noisy fresh-fish dinner at the Cais do Sodre Time Out markets.
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